Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice

Waterwise Consulting™, LLC, is committed to ensuring environmental justice for low-income and minority communities and indigenous peoples at a price you can afford. Let us help your community or tribe protect itself from being overwhelmed and undermined by developers, big corporations, and/or agencies at every level of government at every step in the process.

We can help you by reviewing, commenting on, and challenging:

Regional, Community and Neighborhood Development Plans and Zoning Ordinances

The origin of the Federal Government’s environmental justice initiative can be traced back to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs (42 USC 2000(d)-2000(d)(1), which is detailed in the adjacent panel.

After a methyl isocyanate release from a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984 killed thousands and injured tens of thousands, Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA), also known as Title III of SARA, the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. Its purpose is to facilitate state and local emergency planning and to provide the public and local governments with information on potential chemical hazards in their communities. The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is authorized by EPCRA and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) of 1990, which required that additional data on waste management and source reduction activities be reported under TRI. The TRI-specific sections of these federal laws are section 313 of EPCRA and section 6607 of PPA.

More recent efforts to establish tougher security measures for chemical plants, storage facilities, and transportation corridors to protect nearby communities from the effects of terrorist attacks have been stymied by the lobbying efforts of the American Chemical Council, the Chamber of Commerce and the corporate interests they represent.

The Civil Rights Act ostensibly protected disadvantaged individuals, tribes and communities from discrimination and its effects, including discrimination in the location, design, operation, and manage-ment of federally sponsored programs and their impacts on the environment. However, statutes do not implement and enforce themselves, and railways, highways, powerlines, water works, waste disposal facilities, and garbage dumps, were being located in low-income and minority communities and tribal lands much more frequently than in wealthy, majority communities just up the road. This was occurring despite the fact that this infrastructure and these facilities had to meet Federal requirements or were paid for in whole or in part by Federal program funds.

As this pattern became increasingly obvious, environmental groups such as the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, founded by Lois Gibbs of Love Canal fame, gave voice to the concerns of these increasingly adversely impacted communities and their outrage at the failure of federal, state, county, and city laws, regulations, ordinances, and codes to protect their health and property values:

By the time President William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton took office in 1992, the systematic environmental injustices being done to low-income, minority, and tribal communities could no longer be ignored. To rectify this situation, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12898 in 1994 that established environmental justice in the Federal Government as a national priority and banned all federal agencies and pro-grams from engaging in policies and practices that discriminated against low-income communities, minorities, and indigenous peoples in environ- mental decision-making. The link to that Executive Order is:

Each Federal Department, agency, and office has subsequently published regulations, policies, and guidelines to implement that Executive Order and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. General guidance for navigating the laws so as to obtain environmental justice are available at:

This title declares it to be the policy of the United States that discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin shall not occur in connection with pro-grams and activities receiving Federal financial assistance and authorizes and directs the appropriate Federal depart-ments and agencies to take action to carry out this policy. This title is not intended to apply to foreign assistance programs.

Section 601 -- This section states the general principle that no person in the United States shall be excluded from participation in or otherwise discrimin-ated against on the ground of race, color, or national origin under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Section 602 directs each Federal agency administering a program of Federal financial assistance by way of grant, contract, or loan to take action pursuant to rule, regulation, or order of general applicability to effectuate the principle of section 601 in a manner consistent with the achievement of the objectives of the statute authorizing the assistance. In seeking the effect compliance with its requirements imposed under this section, an agency is authorized to terminate or to refuse to grant or to continue assis-tance under a program to any recipient as to whom there has been an express finding pursuant to a hearing of a failure to comply with the requirements under that program, and it may also employ any other means authorized by law. How-ever, each agency is directed first to seek compliance with its requirements by voluntary means.

Section 603 provides that any agency action taken pursuant to section 602 shall be subject to such judicial review as would be available for similar actions by that agency on other grounds. Where the agency action consists of terminating or refusing to grant or to continue finan-cial assistance because of a finding of a failure of the recipient to comply with the agency's requirements imposed under section 602, and the agency action would not otherwise be subject to judicial re-view under existing law, judicial review shall nevertheless be available to any person aggrieved as provided in section 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act (5 USC 1009). The section also states explicitly that in the latter situation such agency action shall not be deemed committed to unreviewable agency discretion within the meaning of section 10. The purpose of this provision is to obviate the possible argument that although section 603 provides for re- view in accordance with section 10, section 10 itself has an exception for action "committed to agency discretion," which might otherwise be carried over into section 603. It is not the purpose of this provision of section 603, however, otherwise to alter the scope of judicial review as presently provided in section 10(e) of the Administrative Procedure Act.